Student Tour Blog

On Friday, June 6th, the 81st anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, we visited the Holten Canadian War Cemetery. This cemetery contains graves of the Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in the final few months of the Second World War, primarily in the duty of liberating Dutch cities and towns. The cemetery was beautiful and was maintained with the utmost care. Tucked into a Dutch forest, the cemetery featured a visitor centre and a small museum that focused on the Canadian impact on the liberation of the Netherlands and their collective sacrifice. The main cemetery was marked with a reflective garden with neatly trimmed grass and shrubs, with roses in bloom. The main cemetery was perfectly symmetric with a path up the centre towards the Cross of Remembrance. Unique to this CWGC cemetery was the closeness in which the local Dutch helped maintain it. Each grave includes a placard with the soldier’s photo and a QR code that includes their service history. It was very special and another step in remembrance, a step that crosses boundaries and shows the connection between our two countries still runs deep, even if geography has disconnected some in Canada.

It was also at Holten where I had the opportunity to deliver the last soldier profile of our trip, on Cpl Frank Arthur Cherry M.M., April 28th, 1924 – April 10th, 1945. Cpl Cherry joined the Canadian Army at just 16 years old and served on Juno Beach, the Channel Ports, the Scheldt, the Rhineland, and into the Netherlands. Cpl Cherry earned a Military Medal for his bravery in Normandy. Getting to share his story was very impactful for me, as he was only 21 when he died—the same age I am now.

After Holten, we travelled to our last stop of the tour in terms of historical sites: Westerbork Transit Camp in the northern Netherlands. The site had a museum once you arrived. Westerbork was the site where the Dutch Jews were sent and sorted before they were sent to the larger death and labour camps in the east. The museum was filled with artifacts and items that were confiscated from the Jewish people who were sent there. They seemed like objects stuck in time, waiting for their owners to return. To get to the site of the camp we needed to take a short two-kilometre shuttle ride. The site itself was quite large. Most of the buildings have since been removed, but the ground of their foundation remains raised in outlines. The entrance is marked with the still-standing commandant’s house, encased in a glass structure for conservation. It was a striking example of how desensitized and connected Nazi family members were to genocide, living as a family with gardens 300 metres from where Jewish people were loaded onto cattle cars being sent to Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen. The site also contains two memorials: one on the back end, with railway tracks leading to a stone wall; the second is over a hundred thousand blocks with Stars of David symbolizing all the Jewish people who were sent through the camp. Several hundred blocks had flames, symbolizing the Roma people, while a few dozen had no symbol—a reflection of the Dutch resistance sent to camps. Westerbork marked our last site, a fitting symbol that exemplifies the just cause of the Canadians in the Second World War. It was not a war for empire or wealth; it was a war for humanity, to liberate the subjects of Nazi tyranny.